Gasoline Storage

For those of you who store gasoline as part of your emergency plan, how much do you store and how do you store it safely?

I get nervous just looking at our gasoline depot.

We use an anchored, low profile storage shed set in the shade about 130 feet from the nearest building. Gas is stored in several 5 gallon plastic gas cans..

We are pretty mobile right now, living in a motorhome, but while in our "stick" home, I kept several five gallon gas cans in our seperate storeroom, treated with Stabil, and never had a problem. An underground tank would be nice, but is cost prohibitive...

I have two 5 gallon Justrite Safety Cans filled with gas and stablized with Stabil. These gas can are supposed to reduce the chance of ignition in the container.

http://www.justritemfg.com/containes.tpl

I store 35 gals under the same conditions that you do, minus the shade tree. I turn the gas around every 6 months.

I only keep about 35 gals too.

I would like to ante up the storage up to 150 gallons (30 day supply for generator) before Winter, but my current method doesn't seem like a good idea scaled up.

Also, I have space to put something, out of sight and far from any building. I have noticed a few small farm trailer tanks on-line, and above ground tanks. Below ground sounds like a good idea too, but above ground will eliminate the need for electricity...right?. Does anybody have experience with these types of storage containers?

Good point and too much work anyway.

I was thinking of something above ground like you would see on a farm...a tank on a trailer would be handy.

Long long ago my dad buried a 55 gallon drum in his garage, right before he added a concrete floor. Left a stand of 2" pipe sticking up, with a threaded cap on top. To get fuel out he just screwed a crank type hand pump on and cranked out whatever he needed. Refilled it by pouring gas in. No Stabil, no nothing, and no problems. We uesd that thing for probably fifteen years before abandoning it...

I found a local gas station chain that will supply a skid load
double-wall tank, pump and refill service....for 5 cents more per gallon than at the pump. Their smallest tank is two times larger than I need, but it is a place to start...

Here is a link. This is not an endorsement, just information.

http://www.gascitytankwagon.com/equipment.asp

One of my brother's old slightly paranoid friends was thinking of having some kind of farm-type underground gas tank installed as a hedge against rising fuel prices. He was told that he needed to get a permit to do it. He thought about it for a minute, then said something like, "You pay for a permit to have the tank, and when the storm troopers need some gas, they have my address?"

Sue

I hate when that happens.

Its probably more critical now with the use of oxygenated fuels.

There are also different seasonal blends of gasoline. With "winter" gas, there are more additives in it that make for easier starting in cold weather.

From personal experience from living in Northern Canada for many years, stored "summer" gas at times would not start my truck or 12 HP snow blower when it was colder then approx 25 degrees F. This also depended on other environmental factors such as humidity etc.

Once the fuel had been switched to winter blend gas, the engines would start and run much better.

I was told by more then one person who worked at the local refinery that produced gasoline that in general, the winter blend gas stores much longer then summer blend due to the extra additives.


This website explains it much further..

Does anyone know the temperature limits of these cans?

I live in Southern California in the desert area where it is 120 during the day lately. If I stored them in a shed with vents in the top (for vapors) obviously the cans would be shaded.

Thoughts?

That sounds great.....I already put an order for 5 cans in

Since you live in California, any gasoline cans you order will have to be CARB-rated (unless the business you’re ordering from doesn’t really care about state regulations). CARB-rated cans are designed to vent any excess vapors automatically when too much heat causes the pressures to rise.

Keep in mind, however, that gasoline vapors are heavier than air. The vents at the top of the shed may not do as much good as you would like unless there is really good air circulation in the shed. It is recommended that gasoline storage enclosures be vented at the bottom. Fortunately vents are pretty easy to add to a structure (unless it’s concrete or in a basement or something, which I doubt).

During mid day it seems to get about 115 degrees in the garage.

Any thoughts on that with those cans?

it's the other part of probably that is worrying me